Birthday Surprises
by OwlPostAgain7
Summary: Ginny tries to give Harry his seventeenth birthday present. Oneshot.


Demelza said they made my arse look "perky." Perky. As if my arse was a sodding puppy or something. Not once in my entire life have I looked at an arse, mine or anyone else's, and thought to myself, Merlin, that's a perky arse.

I told Demelza this but she just told me to shut up and take the effing shorts. Demelza's parents are divorced, and her mum is always sending her fashionable muggle clothes with useless pockets and hemlines that would give McGonagall heart palpitations. But Demelza's father sends her 15 galleons a month and a box of sweets every Friday, so Demelza says he's winning.

Demelza says that this is because her mother is worried that Demelza is going to become a lesbian if she doesn't stop playing Quidditch and start looking for a boyfriend. I might tell my mother I fancied lesbianism if it meant getting shipments of makeup and clothes so large that it takes two owls.

Though truthfully, I'm not really the sort to care about clothes. For one thing, school robes look horrible no matter who you are. Well, they probably don't look so horrible on Phlegm, but everything looks good on Phlegm so she doesn't count. Most of the time I'm wearing muggle clothes, but even then I can't be arsed to put much effort into it. It's not that I don't want look like the hottest girl in Devon, but the actual process of it doesn't really hold my interest. Girls like Demelza have a massive collection of face and hair products, and all of the products have names like Illuminating Advanced Hydrating Masque. But Demelza says that I look fine with the £2.99 shampoo and conditioner from the village shop. Hermione says the same thing, though she's not really objective and is always saying that she has far more important things to worry about than the way she looks.

Which is a load of dragon dung to be honest. Hermione prances around pretending not to care about how she looks, but I'm the one who taught her to put on mascara without losing an eye. Plus, her shampoo is called Intensive Frizz-Control Smoothing Serum, and had a £15 sticker on the bottom of the bottle.

So I'm standing here in the tiny little shorts and a t-shirt that says Ridgebit Dragon Reserve that Charlie gave me for Christmas when I was twelve. It was a bit too big when he gave it to me, but now it's all tight across the front. When Hermione saw it, she just raised her eyebrows. Then she told me it looked "nice." _Nice._

I actually don't know if Mum would let me out in this shirt, which is why I'm hiding out in my room. The working plan is to catch Harry on his way up the stairs after he finishes opening his presents. Merlin, that makes me sound like some sort of predatory creature. Like I'm trapping poor innocent Harry Potter in my slutty web.

I'm not wearing shoes either. I wouldn't wear school shoes during the holidays unless you paid me, my trainers were covered in stupid-looking everlasting ink drawings, and my ballet flats are embarrassingly scuffed. So I'm barefoot because I've decided that barefoot is very casual and relaxed. Barefoot says_, oh, I've only just thought of this, Harry, come into my room_. Like it's just on a whim instead of something I've been planning since he had arrived at the Burrow a month before. I closed my eyes to rehearse my little speech in my head. The major points: perfectly capable, good at hexes, couldn't possibly be worse than Ron, and already a target anyway.

There were three sets of footsteps on the stairs. Fuck.

I couldn't afford to think about what I was doing. I flung the door open so quickly that Ron jumped back a little. "Harry, will you come in here a moment?" There, that was good. I sounded like I could be asking him for help with a bit of homework.

Ron opened his mouth to say something that would no doubt be an attempt to defend Harry against his predatory baby sister, but Hermione grabbed his elbow and started tugging him up the stairs. I take back everything I said about Hermione prancing. As a matter of fact, I should probably arrange for an Order of Merlin or something.

Harry looked so nervous that I half-expected him to pull out his wand in case any dark wizards were lurking just out of sight. I pulled the door wider and he followed me into my room. It used to be Charlie's room, before he and Bill left for Hogwarts. The walls are the same soft yellow colour they've been since I was six and slept on the landing for two weeks until Mum and Dad agreed to paint my room something other than first-Weasley-girl-in-three-generations pink.

I'd cleaned it for Harry, of course. I'm not a slob or anything, but it gets sort of crowded with my school stuff lying around.

When Harry had closed the door behind him, I turned around to look at him. I had forgotten how tall he was. All of my brothers were taller than I was, but when I was standing right up next to Harry like this—

Deep breath, Ginny. I debated taking his hands in mine like they sometimes do in romance novels, but decided it would have looked stupid.

His brow wrinkled slightly, and I realized he was waiting for me to speak.

"Happy birthday, Harry," I said. Which wasn't exactly the most romantic thing in the world, but I had to start with something, didn't I? I couldn't just stand there and say, "Happy-Birthday-and-by-the-way-I'm-in-love-with-you-so-please-don't-forget-I-exist-and-run-off-with a-skinny-Hufflepuff-who's-chipper-and-old-enough-to-fight-Voldemort.

"Yeah," he said, a bit self-consciously, like he had already forgotten it was his birthday. "Thanks." His eyes flitted over my shoulder. "Nice view," he said weakly.

There was no way that I was going to let this conversation get sidetracked by my damn window. "I couldn't think what to get you," I said in what was supposed to be a very seductive voice.

"You didn't have to get me anything," mumbled Harry. To be honest, I was starting to get a bit hacked off at Harry's stubborn refusal to be seduced. He was still looking at a spot over my shoulder.

"I didn't know what would be useful," I said. "Nothing too big, because you wouldn't be able to take it with you."

He finally looked me in the eye, and I seized my opportunity, stepping forward so that I had to crane my neck a little to look at him. "So I thought, I'd like you to have something to remember me by," I said. This was the moment where I was supposed to kiss him.

But instead of kissing him, my mouth kept moving. God damn it. "You know, in case you meet some veela when you're off doing whatever you're doing." Shit, I wasn't supposed to say that part out loud.

Harry half-smiled. It was the proper smile too, which I've only seen once since Dumbledore's funeral. I don't think he realizes how easy it is to tell the difference between his grin-and-bear-it smile and his real smile.

"I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be honest." He was leaning forward now, and our faces were only inches apart.

"There's the silver lining I've been looking for," I whispered.

I pressed my lips against his, and he responded with such enthusiasm that I almost lost my balance. His hand was at my back, holding me steady as his lips moved against mine. Kissing him was almost like muscle memory. There was no Voldemort, no prophecy, no Hogwarts. It was just Harry with his hand tangled in my hair and his lips moving against mine.

There was a sharp noise on the periphery of the world, and Harry lurched away from mine.

Ron was standing the doorway. "Oh," he said, his eyes flicking from me to Harry. "_Sorry_." He didn't sound sorry at all.

I heard hurried footsteps on the stairs and Hermione appeared at Ron's shoulder. "Ron!" she said, throwing me an apologetic look.

But it was too late.

The silence was almost unbearable. Ron and Hermione seemed to be waiting for one of us to speak.

I was supposed to tell him all of the reasons why we shouldn't have split up. But it didn't matter. Because I was not so silly and naïve to think that Harry would suddenly decide to stay. He was going after Voldemort.

The silence was almost unbearable. Ron and Hermione seemed to be waiting for one of us to speak.

Finally, I said, "Well, Happy birthday anyway, Harry." It sounded pathetic and small. His eyes, which had been fixed upon Ron and Hermione in the doorway, flicked back to me. He stared at me for a few moments, looking absolutely miserable.

"I'll see you later," he said, his voice breaking slightly. All of the summoning charms in the world wouldn't have been enough to make me tear my gaze away from the window. The door closed behind me, and I heard three sets of footsteps making their silent way down the stairs. Humiliatingly, hot tears pricked behind my eyes.

And yet—all I could do was stand there and feel utterly pathetic in my stupid little shorts.


End file.
